Page 71 of Craving Dahlia

And I’ve dragged Dahlia into it now, too. All because of one night of pleasure that I so desperately wanted, that managed to trap us together.

When the clock on my nightstand ticks past one a.m. and I still can’t sleep, I get out of bed, padding down the hall towards her room.Maybe she can’t sleep either,I think.I’ll apologize for not being more gentle in how I talked to her, and then we’ll go back to ignoring each other.Just because there needs to not be anything between us doesn’t mean I had to be so cruel to her?—

Her door is open. I frown, every sense instantly on high alert, because Dahlia never just leaves her bedroom door open like this—mostly to try to keep me out. I nudge the door open a little wider, stepping inside, and see that there’s no sign of her.

She’s not in bed. The light is off in her bathroom, and her bed is still made, exactly the way it was when I left her earlier after our argument. She never went to bed, it looks like.

I frown, walking further into the room. A few of her dresser drawers are open, and it looks like some of her clothes are missing. Some of the items off of her vanity are gone, too. A jolt of fear hits me, sharp and almost painful, because I remember clearly what she said.

We’ll be fine on our own.

Did she just leave? I look around, and although it seems insane that she would have simply packed up and walked out after that argument—that was what she said she was going to do. I just didn’t think she meantright then.

If I had, I would have tried to stop her. I thought she’d cool off in the morning, that it was just another fight. I didn’t think she’d go out late at night, alone?—

Where would she have gone?

I press a fist to my forehead, trying to think. If she went to a hotel, I won’t have any chance of finding her. There’s no chance in hell I could guess which one out of every hotel in Manhattanshe might go to. There’s a possibility she might have gone to her other friend’s house—Genevieve—but something in the back of my head tells me that’s not true. That if she was running, she’d seek out something safe. Something familiar that wouldn’t cause her to impose on someone else.

I don’t know her as well as I should, considering she’s my wife and the mother of my child, but I know enough. I’ve paid enough attention to think that I know where she would have gone—at least briefly since, as far as I’m aware, the place isn’t actually hers any longer.

Her old apartment.

I bolt down the stairs, heading out into the cool night air and straight for my bike. I don’t know that she’ll still be there, not now that hours have passed, but instinct tells me to go anyway. Even though she’s likely left and gone somewhere else, maybe there will be some clue that will let me know where she’s gone.

It’s not the most logical course of action. The logical thing would be to go back into the house and wake Dimitri, ask him and Evelyn where they think Dahlia might have gone. Have Evelyn call Dahlia, since I know there’s no way she’ll answer my call.

And say what? That my wife ran away from me and I need to track her down? And all the reasons why I’m so worried for her, along with that?

It’s long past the time to fill my brother in on what’s happened over the last five years, and how it’s followed me home. I know that, but I follow my gut instead, getting on my bike and heading for Dahlia’s apartment complex. I leave it next to the outer doors, heading in and to the elevator. For once, there’s no fog of lust that envelops me at the memory of what we did in this elevator together, in her apartment a few floors above. All I can think about is that I need to get to her. That I need to make sure she’s safe.

When I get to her apartment door, my stomach drops.

It’s half-open, the interior of the apartment dark. I can see, as I stand in the entryway, that it’s blank and empty, clinically cleaned for the next resident. And, sitting in the foyer and fallen over on its side, is a duffel bag.

I grab it, unzipping it in one quick motion, and a ball of ice fills my stomach. Inside is not just Dahlia’s clothing and some of her personal items that I recognize, but also her wallet. Her ID, her cards, forty dollars in cash—all things that she wouldn’t just leave here of her own volition.

My gaze drops to the tile in the foyer between the bag and the door—the only part of this apartment that isn’t sparkling clean. There’s fresh scuff marks on the tile, small ones, like someone wearing boots kicked the floor. And when I stand up and step back out into the hall, my heart beating hard in my chest, I see a woman’s boot by the stairwell. Just one, and when I pick it up, it looks like one that I’ve seen Dahlia wearing before. I can’t be sure that it’s hers—but added in with everything else, I feel almost certain that I know what happened.

They got her. They were watching her, and they took her.

Anger burns through my veins, hot and relentless, and it takes everything in me not to rush headlong into more danger. But the truth is that I don’t know where she is. I don’t have the slightest way of beginning to figure out where Gregoriy might have had her taken, where he might be staying, where his men are located. I can’t do this alone.

I need Dimitri. I need to tell my brother the truth.

Swallowing hard, I bolt back for the elevator, getting down to the main floor and back out to my bike as quickly as I can. I speed all the way back to the mansion, nearly laying the motorcycle down in the gravel of the courtyard as I jump off of it and race up to the floor where the master bedroom is located.

I’m pounding on Dimitri’s door before I even fully realize it, desperation tinging every nerve in my body.I need to find her,is the only thought running through my head, over and over again, right up to the moment that the bedroom door is jerked open and my fist left hanging in midair as my sleepy, grumpy-looking brother stares at me from the other side of it, in his pajama pants.

“What the hell, Alek?” he growls.

“Dahlia is gone.” The words come out sharp, each one bitten off. “I need to find her.”

Dimitri stares at me, confused. “What do you mean,gone?”

“We had a fight. I—said some things that upset her. She said she was leaving. When I got up a few hours later to go back and apologize, she was gone. Some of her clothes, her things?—”

“She probably went to Genevieve’s. Evelyn can call her in the morning—” Dimitri’s voice is lowered and he glances over at the bed, where Evelyn is somehow still asleep despite my furious pounding on the bedroom door. Maybe she sleeps with earplugs in.

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